Hallo! I'm Fergal McElherron, and I'm playing the Dromios (of
Ephesus and Syracuse) in this year's touring production of The
Comedy of Errors. Although it’s a revival, I'm new to the cast
this year and I didn’t even manage to see it last year, so I have
no frame of reference for the show. Rebecca Gatward, our director,
has been great because she is treating it as if she is getting
another go, that it’s not just a rehash. She made it clear that she
wasn’t going to tell us what they did last year, but that for
certain scenes, she might nudge us in a particular direction. So,
for example, the ‘door scene’: they spent a week on that scene
alone last year. There was no point in us just reinventing it for
the sake of reinventing it, because it worked and I can't think of
a better way of doing it. And it bought us a week of rehearsal
time!

The advantage of one actor plating both Dromios is that we can
concentrate on the differences between them, whereas with two
actors you’d be trying to make each other similar enough that it
would be believable twins – obviously I don’t have to worry about
looking like myself! The Syracusan Dromio seems very innocent and
Tom [Mothersdale, Antipholous] and I decided that he wasn’t beaten
as much, he’s not as downtrodden and so they’re kind of friends.
Even though there still is that master / servant role, they’ve been
travelling around for seven years, so it isn’t just me just
carrying his bags. We’ve been discovering places together. The
other big difference between the Dromios is that the Syracusans
know that they have twin brothers, so we both know what the void is
in our lives, whereas the Antipholus and Dromio from Ephesus don’t
know they have a twin.

The first venue I get to write about is Headingham Castle in
Sussex. I’d actually been here previously, on the Globe tour
of The Winter’s Tale (2008), so when we arrived on that
first day I felt like I was back, That changed things a bit as it
was exactly as I’d remembered it and the audience were just as warm
and just as up for it as when we did it three years ago.

It’s a blocky stone castle, the area is surrounded by trees and
it’s on a height so beyond the trees, the ground drops down onto
paths to walk through the woods, so it feels secluded. There was a
kind of a dip in the grounds and we were nestled in with this
gorgeous backdrop of this old ruin behind us. Weather-wise, it was
beautiful, so warm. You sometimes worry about the audience being
blinded by the sun, and I’d far rather it was us as actors as we’re
on and off and moving around, but I think they were fine.

I think the audience can change quite a lot with touring shows.
One day you might get an audience that are really, really giddy,
just really up for it, and then another day you might get an
audience where they’re just really listening really closely and
they’re loving it but they’re just not as vocal about it. What’s
also been lovely is that for me, it feels the audiences are here as
a very deliberate thing. I think coming to the Globe, some people
come for the building as much as you come for the plays. And as I
say Headingham felt quite remote, so I have no idea how far away
some of these people were driving from – it’s brilliant!

Next stop another castle, this time Herstmonceux, but I’ll be
back soon to talk about Emmanuel College, Oxford.

Cambridge has been great! We were in the Master’s garden in
Emmanuel College, which is literally a garden at the back of his
house. It made it so much more intimate because we were surrounded
by college buildings. The stage looked out over the garden, so you
could see trees, and there was a kind of a hill so that the
audience were on a natural rake. We And then in the distance, you
could see the turrets of some of the buildings and so we got that
Cambridge feel.

Compared to the big castle or stately home venues, it felt
really private, like we had gone off into a corner to do something
for a few people who happened to turn up. I think it might have
been the smallest we’ve played in terms of ground space for the
audience, so it always looked packed! Although saying that, for a
couple of performances we had over two hundred people, so busy
enough!

The weather was mostly great. There was one day when it rained
which is always a weird thing. If it’s raining from the opening
line, then you’re grand. You know what you’re facing, and the
audience are ready for it. But if it starts raining in the middle
of a show it’s really weird because the audience just blatantly
ignore you while they’re getting themselves together. And you can’t
wait for them when it’s a big plot point; you just think, “Right,
they’ll catch up again”!

So far touring has mostly been commutable from London, which I
had to admit I have loved; if it’s somewhere commutable, I will do
it because for me, personally, waking up in your own bed makes a
huge difference. It just gives you that wee sense of normality. It
sounds like a very obvious thing to say but on tour, you’ve nothing
around you and that displacement can become quite gruelling. But
the next leg of the tour is going to be a bit further afield
(including Austria), which I’ll hopefully update about later!